It appears the theives used the farm's own equipment to empty the bins and would have needed five or six hours to truck off the purloined corn, Desjardins said.

The stolen corn has an estimated street value of $140,000.

The thieves, who also made off with a small quantity of soybeans, apparently disabled the farm's security alarm and surveillance camera, CBC News said.

"We're freaking out," Desjardins said. "We know almost everybody around, and we don't know if this could be somebody [we know.]"

Desjardins hopes the corn can still be recovered.

"It's such a big load of grain that we can't imagine this will disappear," he told CBC News.

High corn prices due to last summer's U.S. drought are thought to be the motive behind the theft.

It's the latest large-scale heist of Quebec comestibles, coming after last summer's disappearance of hundreds of barrels of maple syrup worth an estimated $30 million from a warehouse northeast of Montreal.

A police investigation turned up a cache of syrup at a warehouse in New Brunswick in October, CTV News reported.